Escarpment

Escarpment face of a cuesta, broken by a fault, overlooking Trenton, Cloudland Canyon State Park, and Lookout Mountain in the U.S. state of Georgia

An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.

The terms scarp and scarp face are often used interchangeably with escarpment.[citation needed] Some sources differentiate the two terms, with escarpment referring to the margin between two landforms, and scarp referring to a cliff or a steep slope.[1][2] In this usage an escarpment is a ridge which has a gentle slope on one side and a steep scarp on the other side.

More loosely, the term scarp also describes a zone between a coastal lowland and a continental plateau which shows a marked, abrupt change in elevation[3] caused by coastal erosion at the base of the plateau.

  1. ^ Easterbrook, Don J. (1999). Surface Processes and Landforms. Prentice Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-860958-0.[page needed]
  2. ^ Summary: Escarpments, US Army Corps of Engineers.
  3. ^ "Scarps and Terraces". Physiography. Radford University. Retrieved 24 December 2020.